Earnings call transcript: RF Capital Group misses Q2 2025 earnings expectations

RF Capital Group reported its Q2 2025 earnings, revealing a significant miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company’s EPS was -0.21 CAD, falling short of the expected 0.0167 CAD, while revenue reached 89.3 million CAD, below the anticipated 95.5 million CAD. This underperformance led to a slight decline in the stock price, with shares dropping 0.05% to close at 19.72 CAD in after-hours trading. According to InvestingPro data, the stock has shown remarkable resilience with a 47.31% return over the past year and currently trades near its 52-week high, suggesting strong investor confidence despite the earnings miss.

Key Takeaways

• RF Capital Group’s EPS and revenue both missed analyst expectations for Q2 2025.
• The company’s stock saw a minor decrease following the earnings announcement.
• A focus on digital platform enhancements and advisor recruitment continues to be a strategic priority.
• The acquisition by IA Financial Corporation is expected to close later in 2025.

Company Performance

RF Capital Group experienced a challenging quarter, with Q2 2025 revenue decreasing by 2% year-over-year to 89.3 million CAD. Despite the revenue decline, fee revenue grew by 6%, driven by higher average Assets Under Administration (AUA), which increased by 3.2 billion CAD year-to-date. However, adjusted EBITDA fell to 10.7 million CAD from 15.1 million CAD in the previous year, highlighting operational challenges.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: 89.3 million CAD (down 2% YoY)
• Earnings per share: -0.21 CAD (missed forecast of 0.0167 CAD)
• Adjusted EBITDA: 10.7 million CAD (down from 15.1 million CAD in Q2 2024)
• Free Cash Flow: 1.8 million CAD (down from 8 million CAD last year)

Earnings vs. Forecast

RF Capital Group’s Q2 2025 earnings fell short of expectations, with an EPS surprise of -1357.48%. Revenue also disappointed, missing forecasts by 4.48%. This significant miss contrasts with previous quarters where the company met or exceeded expectations, raising concerns about its short-term financial health.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, RF Capital’s stock experienced a slight decline of 0.05%, closing at 19.72 CAD. This movement places the stock near its 52-week high of 20 CAD, reflecting relatively stable investor sentiment despite the earnings miss. The broader market showed mixed reactions, with sector peers experiencing varied performances. InvestingPro data shows the stock has gained 16.14% year-to-date, with technical indicators suggesting overbought conditions. The company’s strong momentum is evidenced by significant returns across multiple timeframes, though investors should note the stock’s historically high price volatility.

Outlook & Guidance

The company remains committed to enhancing its digital platform and recruiting new advisors to drive future growth. RF Capital anticipates continued AUA growth through client asset expansion and recruitment efforts. Additionally, the impending acquisition by IA Financial Corporation, valued at 597 million CAD, is expected to close later in 2025, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Executive Commentary

Francis Baillargeon, CFO, emphasized the ongoing digital transformation, stating, "We are now engaged with Salesforce... to enable our advisors to build stronger connections and improve client experiences." Baillargeon also highlighted the significance of the IA Financial acquisition, describing it as "an exciting milestone" for the company.

Risks and Challenges

• Global economic conditions may impact revenue and AUA growth.
• Inflationary pressures could increase operating expenses.
• The acquisition by IA Financial is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.
• Market volatility could affect the correlation between revenue and equity market returns.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the acquisition details, with RF Capital confirming that IA Financial will purchase all common shares at 20 CAD per share. Questions also focused on the company’s digital initiatives and strategies for mitigating inflationary pressures.

This article provides insight into RF Capital Group’s financial performance and strategic direction, highlighting the challenges and opportunities ahead.

Full transcript - RF Capital Group Inc (RCG) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the RF Capital Group Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Results Conference Call. As a reminder, today’s call is being recorded and in a listen only mode. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Francis Bayardjon, Chief Financial Officer.

Please go ahead, Francis.

Francis Baillargeon, Chief Financial Officer, RF Capital Group: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. And welcome to RF Capital’s second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. My name is Francis Baillargeon, and I am the Chief Financial Officer. I’d like to remind you that our remarks may contain forward looking information, and actual results could differ materially. Forward looking information is subject to many risks and uncertainties.

Certain factors or assumptions applied in the forward looking information can be found in our latest AIF and MD and A. These documents are available on our website and at sedarplus.ca. Today, I will provide a brief update on our second quarter twenty twenty five performance and some comments on our plans going forward. I will cover our detailed financial results and outlook and also offer some brief remarks on the transaction we announced earlier this Monday, July 28 with IA Financial Corporation. As a reminder, we are happy to answer any questions from analysts or shareholders, which can be directed to our Investor Relations team and mailbox.

Their contact information can also be found at the end of our earnings press release. I will now provide a review of Q2 including an update on our three pillar strategy. Under pillar one strengthening support for our advisory teams, our focus remains squarely on executing two overarching goals: number one, making it easier for our teams to work here so they can provide superior client advice and service and number two, enabling our teams to grow more valuable practices. To make it easier to work here, we are dedicated to creating middle office excellence, which is delivered through our advisor service center and Fidelity Clearing Canada. I am pleased to advise that all our teams, except for those from one branch, have now been onboarded to our new dedicated middle office model.

This means our teams now have relationship managers providing end to end ownership for all operational issues. They are essentially responsible for carrying the baton to the finish line. Since the start of this initiative, the overarching objective of middle office excellence is to make it easier for our teams, getting things out of their way so they can focus on more client centric activities and repeating success for consistent service experience. Since launch, we have seen a significant decrease in turnaround time on problem resolution, an increase in the quality of responses and the ability for the relationship managers to handle 80% of the issues without requiring any involvement from Fidelity. These are indicators that we have the right people bringing a higher caliber of service to our team.

It’s a real win. With enabling our teams to grow more valuable practices, we continue to enhance our digital platform by adding tools that enhance capabilities in our toolkit. We recently entered into an agreement with CapIntel to offer support to advisors with their prospecting activities. CapIntel gives advisors the means to create dynamic and customized proposals along with the ability to provide instantaneous comparisons between existing and optimized portfolios. FactSet is another tool we have invested in.

This is a best in class market data tool that combines research analytics and content along with streaming real time data in a single platform. We are now also engaged with Salesforce. This provides a suite of tools for various business functions including sales, service and marketing. Acting as a central hub for managing data and interactions, Salesforce will enable our advisors to build stronger connections and improve client experiences. These are the nuts and bolts of our vision to deliver a fully integrated Advisor Digital workstation that will ultimately provide seamless access to all core tools, applications and data in a unified user friendly single pane of glass interface, empowering advisors to work efficiently and collaborate effortlessly.

It will also drive productivity by reducing the amount of swivel chair activities by creating a single location to look for information from across different platforms. This work, which addresses the need for an integrated desktop experience aligned with business, regulatory and technology objectives, is expected to increase efficiency, lower operational risk, create a higher ROI on digital tools and provide faster and personalized client service. We began this journey in May by identifying the capabilities and processes to improve upon. Into next year, we will begin our technology adoption and integration. And going forward, we will continue to enhance integration of this technology stack and we expect advanced digitization with high levels of automation and connectivity.

This Advisor Digital Workstation is part of the continued execution of the two overarching goals under our first pillar to strengthen advisor support, making it easier to work here and helping advisors to grow more valuable businesses. As our go forward strategy, it’s also something we’ll continue to report on in the coming quarters. Moving on to pillar two, I want to touch on recruitment, which remains the key driver of our growth strategy. While we did not onboard any new teams in Q2, we were pleased to welcome a new senior advisor from a bank owned dealer on July 14. However, we continue to have engaging discussions with advisors who are aligned to our culture and our long term goals and anticipate that we will be extending invitations to many in our very robust pipeline.

In Q2, we gathered a group of our highly engaged advisors from across the country in our Toronto offices to help develop an enticing message targeted at advisors from other firms. In these videos, which will appear in social media in September, our advisors talk in their own words about the power of partnership, our deep rooted entrepreneurialism, our culture, our company brand and our digitization. Our brand is also portrayed in a unique way, which we believe will help differentiate Richardson Wealth from our competitors. Finally, with respect to our third pillar, which is acquiring or partnering with like minded firms, the situation remains unchanged. As a reminder, to execute successfully on this, there are many dependencies including the availability of targets, the targets’ price expectations, our own share price, economic stability and our access to other forms of capital.

As always, we’ll continue to be open to opportunities to work with parties that align with our strategy and in ways that will generate value for our advisors, clients and shareholders. I’ll now touch on our financial results highlighting positive momentum in our business. We ended the quarter with AUA of CAD40.4 billion, up CAD3.2 billion on the year on the back of supportive equity markets. This quarter adjusted EBITDA was CAD10.7 million and free cash flow available for growth was CAD1.8 million. These results show an upward trend from the 2025.

For the 2025, RF Capital reported CAD89.3 million in revenue, a decrease of 2% as compared to the 2024. Fee revenue was up 6% due to higher average AUA. Non fee revenue was down with corporate finance revenue decreasing 30% from lower underwriting fees and new issue commissions. Interest revenue decreased 21% from a decline in benchmark interest rates and insurance revenue declined 24% from lower sales activity compared to the second quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA was CAD10.7 million in Q2 twenty twenty five compared to CAD15.1 million in Q2 twenty twenty four, but was up CAD1.2 million from Q1 twenty twenty five.

Operating expenses were flat year over year as higher carrying broker charges and the absence of $1,500,000 recovery compared to Q2 twenty twenty four related to legacy legal matter were offset by mark to market on share based compensation. Operating expenses were down CAD7.3 million from Q1 twenty twenty five due to cost discipline, seasonal factors and lower mark to market expenses. In Q2 twenty twenty five, our closing five day volume weighted average share price decreased resulting in a mark to market recovery on the revaluation of our share based compensation liability of $1,300,000 compared to a CAD0.2 million recovery in 2024. Discretionary expenses also decreased from the second quarter of last year, primarily driven by lower spending on consulting and conferences. Turning to cash flow.

Free cash flow available for growth is the cash flow that the company generates before any investments in growth or transformation initiatives. It is intended to provide an indication of the cash that we generate organically to fund our strategic plans. In the 2025, we generated CAD1.8 million of cash flow available for growth, down from CAD8 million last year, primarily due to lower adjusted earnings. Free cash flow is the net cash flow that the company generates from its continuing operations after considering its recruitment, transformation and strategic investments. RF Capital had a free cash flow usage of CAD0.2 million in Q2 twenty twenty five as compared to CAD1.9 million of free cash flow generation in Q2 twenty twenty four that was driven by decreased cash flow available for growth and higher expenditure on real estate initiatives, partly offset by lower advisor loan payments.

Turning to our outlook, I will speak to some of the drivers of our revenue and profitability as we see them today. For the rest of 2025, AUA will continue to be driven by growth in client assets and recruiting and is expected to correlate highly with equity market returns, which may be impacted by global economic conditions, including U. S. Trade policies and tariffs. Interest revenue is impacted by prime rate trends, which economists expect to continue to decline throughout the rest of the year, as well as client cash and margin loan balances.

Turning to operating expenses, we are committed to finding savings and efficiencies where we can and driving operating leverage from our platform to remain profitable as inflation continues to impact certain core operating expenses. Furthermore, operating expenses will also continue to be subject to mark to market expenses on RSUs and BSUs. In particular, our mark to market expenses increase as our share price increases, which if the trend holds will have a meaningful impact on our financial results for Q3. Cash flow for growth will be driven by the factors just discussed and will primarily be deployed towards adding new advisors to the Richardson Wealth Platform. Capital expenditures expected to continue at normalized levels.

We’ll now also touch briefly on the transaction that we announced this past Monday. RF Capital Group announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by IA Financial Corporation, a Canadian insurance and wealth management company. The proposed transaction contemplates the purchase by IA of all of the issued and outstanding common shares of the company for $20 per share in cash by way of a plan of arrangement under the Business Corporations Act of Ontario. The total consideration is $597,000,000 which includes $370,000,000 for the acquisition of 15,600,000.0 common shares and issued and outstanding and $2,900,000 of share based compensation instruments as of 06/30/2025 subject to adjustment in connection with any valid exercise rights of descent by shareholders. This total consideration also includes $227,000,000 for the outstanding portion of revolving debt and preferred shares.

Pursuant to the arrangement agreement, the purchaser will also acquire all of the issued and outstanding cumulative five year rate reset preferred shares Series B of the company. More information is available in our press release relating to this transaction. Closing of the transaction is expected to occur during the 2025, subject to the receipt of the required approvals from the company’s common shareholders and certain regulatory approvals as well as the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions. Dave Kelly will continue to serve as President and CEO of RF Capital through completion of the transaction and remains committed to executing the company’s strategic plan and ensuring a smooth transition of the business following the closing. As I mentioned further information about the proposed transaction is available on our website and we encourage all shareholders to review all materials published by both IA and RF Capital related to this transaction.

More details will be available in our upcoming circular, we expect to be mailed to shareholders towards the end of the month of August. We expect to call a shareholders meeting to be held by the September for shareholders present in person or by a proxy to vote each of their common and or preferred shares in regards to this transaction. This transaction marks an exciting milestone for everyone at Richardson Wealth, brings a great future for our advisors, clients and colleagues and provides exceptional value for all shareholders. Our Board of Directors, after receiving fairness opinions from two financial advisors, unanimously recommended the transaction to shareholders. Before we conclude, I have a couple of additional comments to add.

Once again, we are proud to be recognized by Great Places to Work. For the sixth time now, Richardson Wealth has received the Best Workplaces in Financial Services and Insurance recognition, a testament to our collaborative workplace culture. We have also just been named a Best Workplace for Inclusion, an accolade that speaks to our practices, policies, people and culture. And last month, Investment Executive Magazine released their annual brokerage report card results. As you may know, this survey is an important public barometer of the perceived quality and reputation of Canadian wealth management firms.

It has garnered a great deal of industry attention over the last several years. And as a result, it’s an important tool used extensively by acquisition teams, ours included. I’m happy to share that this year our overall rating went from 8.6 to 8.8 out of 10. Our Net Promoter Score, which reports our advisors’ willingness to refer other advisors to our firm rose from 58 to 74 out of 100. This survey shows important momentum in many areas and we feel an undertone of cautious optimism in the results.

We believe our advisors are in agreement with the direction we are headed, but remind us that we are not there yet. Another important nuance from this survey is our partnership mindset seems to be having an impact. I believe this is exactly attributable to our open and transparent communication, which happens to be in our one on one meetings during our roadshow branch visits, which we just completed last month or even as we pass each other in the hall. This is creating culture of collaboration and alignment, which is of course foundational to our future success. As partners, we will succeed if we are aligned and working together towards the same goals.

We’re looking forward to the year ahead at Richardson Wealth, partnering with our advisory teams and continuing to build on this great momentum. And with that, I will conclude this earnings call. Thank you everyone for listening. Once again, feel free to contact us by our Investor Relations department with any follow-up questions. And we wish everyone a wonderful and in many cases long weekend.

Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Your conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation.

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